Winter Olympics not diverse enough for US media

Posted by Matra on February 10, 2006, 11:26 PM | #

Don Wassall at Caste Football says:

Check out CNNSI.com’s current homepage… It has the “top ten American Olympians to keep your eye on.” Only three of the ten are white men. Two are Negroes—speed skater Shani Davis and Vonetta Flowers, a bobsledder, probably the only two representatives of God’s Chosen Master Athletic Race who will be at the Olympic Village. The rest are white girls.

Posted by Colonel_Reb on February 10, 2006, 11:53 PM | #

Bryant Gumbel is a racist and should be fired for his comments. Sadly, he is like the vast majority of US sportscasters and commentators who work to spread the lie of black athletic supremacy. I hope Gumbel’s March Madness turns into a showcase of white dominated teams like Duke, Gonzaga, and West Virginia. I’d also like to see Gumbel as well as supposedly “athletically superior” blacks try cross-country skiing and see how well they do.

Posted by Luniversal on February 11, 2006, 12:00 AM | #

Gumbel is actually rather mocha himself, like most black media personalities who appeal to whites (cf WEB Du Bois). Looks like there’s a good deal of The Man in his ancestry. These mischling types often overcompensate.

Here’s another wonderful example of Nordic-supremacy conpiracism from (where else?) the WaPo. Click quick or you’ll have to register to get it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/03/AR2006020302280.html

Steve Sailer has race-realist reasons for whites doing better in the Winter than the Summer games at http://www.isteve.com

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 03:10 AM | #

Speaking on his HBO programme Real Sports he said “try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of Blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention”.

I’d love to meet Gumbo and see his face when I tell him “if you ask me, Bryant Gumbel has a paucity of blackness too.”

He’s yet another mostly-white “black man” identifying with the more-PC yet less-indicative portion of his ancestry.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 03:12 AM | #

Gumbel’s smart enough to read a teleprompter, but I guess he’s not smart enough to wonder why those who look more like him are almost always more capable of speech than those who look like Shannon Sharpe.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 03:15 AM | #

I’d also like to see Gumbel as well as supposedly “athletically superior” blacks try cross-country skiing and see how well they do.

...or REAL long-distance running:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrarunning

Posted by Lurker on February 11, 2006, 03:51 AM | #

Id not heard of Mr Gumbel before, so I went looking for pictures. Check out this one:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800290343/photo/210988

Hmmm, just what are we to make of his choice of Mrs?

Posted by Lurker on February 11, 2006, 03:56 AM | #

Oops, hadnt quite finished there.

What I was going to say was that here is a guy who finds racists under every stone but of all the women in the world who does he marry.  Looks like her ancestors might come from somewhere they are good at winter Olympic sports.

Posted by Lurker on February 11, 2006, 04:11 AM | #

Ive been digging around a bit more. That blonde woman captioned as his wife - isnt. She is Hilary Quinlan a girlfriend.

This is, or rather was, his wife of many years standing;

http://www.junegumbel.com/new/pages/res.html

What again are we to make, not only of his current choice of partner but specifically this choice with regard to his former wife. I do hope Mr Gumbel isnt some sort of racist.

Posted by Nick Tamiroff on February 11, 2006, 04:17 AM | #

Bryant Gumble--another O.J. in the making-another Black Racist -loves to stick his stupid,white ,blonde,"wife’inyour face, and cry RACIST!! The KKK needs to make a curtain call.

Posted by Laban on February 11, 2006, 06:21 AM | #

That characterisation of the Winter Olympics as dominated by people from snowy countries is quite wrong.

See this.

http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/02/winter-olympics-watch.html

Posted by Nick Tamiroff on February 11, 2006, 06:54 AM | #

Probably an aside,but did anyone see where NASCAR is looking for ‘diversity’? Since you can’t get an atheletic scholarship,I guess being a getaway driver will qualify Blacks and Beaners to enter the circuit. But,for now,we still have hockey and surfing. Is this multi-culti CRAP ever going to end? Come on CWII__I’m getting old!!

Posted by MichaelCD on February 11, 2006, 12:05 PM | #

I must say it was one of the better opening ceremonies I have seen (blotted only by the appearance of Yoko Ono!).  It celebrated Italian culture of the Renaisance and Baroque periods and the recreation of Botticelli’s Venus with flying angels and with with Verdi as background music was spectacular .  It then moved onto to modern Torino with a Ferrari skidding in the shape of the Olympic Rings.  There was also plenty of Alpine culture with the Alphorns decorated in the flags of the seven countries.  Pavarotti finished the ceremony with the wonderful Nessun Dorma.

All in all it was (rightly) a celebration of Italy and the Alps.  It therefore contrasted drasticly with the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester 2002 of which I attended which was sick-bag fest of “diversity” and had a disproportionate amount of ethnic ‘local children’.  Considering that London’s Olympic bid persistently used their “diversity” as a selling point, I can only imagine what delight’s await us in that opening ceremony.

Posted by friedrich braun on February 11, 2006, 03:45 PM | #

Bryant Gumbel left his Negro wife for a White woman...isn’t that typical? All successful Negroes do that...they dream and fantasize about White women...it’s the ultimate prize.

Posted by Matra on February 11, 2006, 05:02 PM | #

That diversity is to come at the expense of Southerners.  We are again seeing that being diverse in sports means all sports should be the same. If NASCAR had not become so commercially successful outside the South there would be no corporate pressure to change it.

Speaking of racing cars. Where are all the great black Formula One drivers? Despite what the media might tell you it is not just about turning a steering wheel. There has probably been no fitter athlete in recent history than Michael Schumacher.

Bryant Gumbel is a racist and should be fired for his comments

That only happens to Rush Limbaugh and Jimmy the Greek. God knows what would happen to an American sports commentator if they had a Ron Atkinson outburst.

Posted by Ethnocentrist on February 11, 2006, 05:21 PM | #

Atkinson said: “He’s what is known in some schools as a fucking lazy thick nigger.”

And where is the problem with that statement?  You’d think he said something that was wrong.

Posted by friedrich braun on February 11, 2006, 06:56 PM | #

There are no Negroes in NASCAR or Formula 1 for the same reason that there no Negro Air Force fighter pilots. Negroes have smaller brains and fewer cortical neurons (i.e., slower reaction time). I read a scientific article on this very issue a few years ago. If I can find it I’ll post it.

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 11, 2006, 07:14 PM | #

Where are all the great black Formula One drivers?

Not only is there a total absence of blacks, Formula One is dominated almost completely by whites. Even when the winners have not been from Europe (such as Alan Jones (Australia), Ayrton Sienna (Brazil), Nelson Piquet (Brazil) or Carlos Reutemann (Argentina)).

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 11, 2006, 07:16 PM | #

Funnily no one complains about the lack of diversity in basketball. It only becomes an issue with Sports in which whites are preponderant.

Posted by Matra on February 11, 2006, 07:45 PM | #

Not only is there a total absence of blacks, Formula One is dominated almost completely by whites

Even the few Japanese drivers have not done well in F1. There has been one brown driver, Narain Karthikeyan of India, and before him was Malaysian pay driver Alex Yoong who’s mother is British.

The usual excuse is that F1 is just too expensive for poor deprived minorities. But then what about the lower levels of car racing that aren’t that expensive? Given the over the top support for the occasional female driver (eg., Danica Patrick in IndyCars) there’s no doubt that a black driver showing any potential will have loads of corporate sponsors knocking down his door.

Here’s an excerpt from a South african newspaper column on “received ideas”:

Sport knows no race: Classic white denial in the face of overwhelming evidence that black athletes, specifically those of sub-Saharan decent, are streets ahead of their honky rivals. Genetics is everything. American basketball is black, American football is black; before it imploded the best cricket team in the world was black. The two-time holder of the highest Test score, Brian Lara, is black. Boxing is black. The Williams sisters are black. European football, once the preserve of pasty shaggy-haired lads from Scouser housing projects, is faster, harder, and stronger thanks to the arrival of Francophone Africa. When their economic clout catches up with their physical prowess, black stars will dominate Formula One and rugby too. The future of sport is black and bright. As for whites, there’ll always be Putt-Putt.

Surely he’s joking!

Posted by friedrich braun on February 11, 2006, 07:50 PM | #

I couldn’t locate the aforesaid article. However, Negroes do have slower reaction times. Professor Richard Lynn gives evidence for this in his recently published book Race Differences in IQ.

http://majorityrights.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/67/

Posted by Steve Edwards on February 11, 2006, 08:30 PM | #

Interesting - I thought SSA’s had faster real-time reactions (think basketball). Or at least Steve Sailer suggested as much.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 08:33 PM | #

Probably an aside,but did anyone see where NASCAR is looking for ‘diversity’? Since you can’t get an atheletic scholarship,I guess being a getaway driver will qualify Blacks and Beaners to enter the circuit. But,for now,we still have hockey and surfing. Is this multi-culti CRAP ever going to end? Come on CWII__I’m getting old!!

Blacks don’t have the wiring for auto racing.  The military can’t find (not for lack of trying, either) more than a tiny number of blacks with the wiring to be fighter pilots.

For the same reason, I predict no blacks will be found who could be competitive at auto racing.  The “blacks” they do find who can do the job will all look like Tony Dungy.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 08:40 PM | #

Interesting - I thought SSA’s had faster real-time reactions (think basketball). Or at least Steve Sailer suggested as much.

Nope.  Blacks have far more fast-twitch muscle fiber, which lends speed and explosive muscle power.  Their nervous response is slower.  (btw, whites are stronger and have better endurance - witness weightlifting and ultrarunning)

Sailer gets very muddy-headed over black “improvisational thinking.” It’s just squid ink, pay it no mind.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 08:49 PM | #

Well, actually, in many applications blacks do have faster real-time reactions, but that’s owed to muscular speed, not nervous speed.

In other words, for example, blacks dominate boxing in part because they can move their bodies faster, not because they respond more quickly; the white fighter might make the decisions more quickly but his arms travel more slowly.  Plus there’s the power issue (which as any fighter can tell you is distinct from the strength issue).

Fighter pilots use hand-eye coordination, and nervous speed to make micro-movements, not muscular speed to make gross movements like a basketball player or a boxer.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 09:02 PM | #

Another mistake many make is to conflate black supremacy in professional sports with black supremacy in athletics.  Professional sports naturally favor blacks.  One major example can be found in the substitution/rotation phenomenon: blacks are long on explosive power but short on stamina, but widespread use of substitution rules cover their shortcomings and favor their strong suit.

I’m not griping about substitution; it’s entirely natural that spectator sports favor the spectacle.  It’s also natural to make the conflation of professional sports and athletics, but that doesn’t make it correct.

A guy lifting heavy weights isn’t as interesting to watch as a guy playing basketball, but that doesn’t make blacks athletically supreme either.

I’ve wondered if the increased tactical awareness and rounded training necessary in UFC and other MMA competitions might favor whites (who currently dominate them) or if eventually blacks will take them over; my guess is the latter but I do think the playing field they represent is more favorable to whites than, say, boxing.

Posted by friedrich braun on February 11, 2006, 09:03 PM | #

Or at least Steve Sailer suggested as much.

I’d be shocked if Sailer really made that claim; he knows better.

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/lynch_mob.htm

Here’s what he said:

As you can tell just by noticing the greater average muscle definition of black athletes, there are genetic differences between the races that give blacks, on average, more explosive muscularity of the kind that basketball, football, and sprinting particularly require.

PET scans and EEG’s, which can now roughly estimate IQ’s (and thus g’s), show that high-g brains work more quickly, economically, and consistently, like well-greased engines. In fact, this analogy could be almost literally true....one determinant of general mental ability is the thickness of the fatty myelin coating neurons.

And here’s Rushton:

I published several other studies during the 1990s, also in Intelligence, confirming the racial differences in brain size. In one study, I (1991) analyzed data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and found the mean cranial capacity for East Asians was 1,460 cm3, and for Europeans it was 1,446 cm3. From a stratified random sample of 6,325 U.S. Army personnel, I (1992) calculated average cranial capacities for Asians, Whites, and Blacks, respectively, of 1,416 cm3, 1,380 cm3, and 1,359 cm3. (I also found that officers averaged 1,393 cm3 while enlisted personnel averaged 1,375 cm3.) From a compilation made by the International Labour Office in Geneva of tens of thousands of people from around the world, I (1994) found that samples from the Pacific Rim, Europe, and Africa averaged cranial capacities, respectively, of 1,308 cm3, 1,297 cm3, and 1,241 cm3.  Travis Osborne and I (1995) published a paper showing that brain size was about 50% heritable for both Blacks and Whites using data from the Georgia Twin Study based on 236 pairs of Black and White adolescent twins. And once again we found Whites averaged greater cranial capacity than Blacks.

Since one cubic inch of brain matter contains millions of brain cells and hundreds of millions of nerve connections, brain size helps to explain why the races differ in IQ. On standardized IQ tests, hundreds of studies show the three-way pattern. Orientals average slightly ahead of Whites on such tests and Whites average substantially ahead of Blacks. Most IQ tests have an average score of 100, with a “normal” range from 85 to 115. Around the world, Whites average an IQ of about 100, Orientals an IQ of about 104, and Blacks in Britain, the Caribbean, and the U.S. average lower IQs—about 85. The lowest average IQs are found for sub-Saharan Africans [i.e., unmixied Africans...the average American Negro is genetically 25 % White]– around 70 (see Chart 4). Like the other data sets in this essay, these are reviewed in my book Race, Evolution, and Behavior.

http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/vol2no1/jpr-taxonomic.html

Posted by Steve Edwards on February 11, 2006, 09:15 PM | #

‘ Sailer gets very muddy-headed over black “improvisational thinking.” ‘

He drew a parallel between the tendency of blacks to be drawn to jazz, hip-hop and “trash-talk” and their basketball abilities. Of course, he didn’t really bring any data to the topic - it was mostly observations.

On interesting thing I’ve noticed - I was in Hong Kong recently, and there were thousands of African traders in the Kowloon district (along with lots of sub-continentals). Despite that I’m a reasonably big guy by white standards, virtually every single black African made me look puny - even if they were half a foot shorter. Indeed, Hong Kong is a good place to start if you want to observe racial differences - it’s a pretty diverse city.

What’s interesting, is that despite the obvious fact that Africans tend to be bigger in stature than whites, how come we never see any Africans winning the weightlifting at the Olympics? Even Thais have gotten into the finals, so how come Africans don’t make it?

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 09:19 PM | #

Oh, while I’m blabbing about sports…

The idea behind separating the sexes athletically is that males generally dominate females and so in order for women to participate they need their own playing fields, right?

Do those who trumpet black athletic supremacy ever apply that logic to sports vis-a-vis races?  Of course not!  That doesn’t mean they aren’t hypocrites though.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 09:25 PM | #

He drew a parallel between the tendency of blacks to be drawn to jazz, hip-hop and “trash-talk” and their basketball abilities. Of course, he didn’t really bring any data to the topic - it was mostly observations.

I snorted when I first read what you’re referring to; charisma, confidence, whatever, do not “improvisational thinking” make.

As for big Africans and weightlifting, it could be a matter of means vs. distribution on a bell curve, or it could be a matter of fast- vs. slow-twitch muscle fiber, or it could be both, or something else!

Aren’t you glad I’m here to clear things up? 

Posted by Steve Edwards on February 11, 2006, 09:29 PM | #

I guess weightlifting does require a certain amount of muscle endurance (in the clean and jerk, the bar can sit on the chest for 10 seconds), so perhaps slow-twitch plays a role.

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 11, 2006, 10:25 PM | #

Our American and European friends will forgive me for talking a bit of cricket but I couldn’t resist.

before it imploded the best cricket team in the world was black.

Yes and no. Lloyd’s West Indians were among the best in history but I think it is arguable that they weren’t the very best that ever played.

The West Indians benefitted enormously in the 1970s from the ban on South Africa (although even if the ban had not been in place South Africa may not have played them anyway). The South Africans had a bevy of all rounders (the West Indians had none), they had fast bowlers who could have matched the West Indian quartet blow for blow and batsmen of the calibre of Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock (who had no equals). Unfortunately, a real contest between them never occured.

The only contest by proxy was in the Packer World Series in which a World XI packed mostly with South African, Pakistani and English players beat the West Indians in the “Super Tests”.

In addition, up until the end of the packer era, the Australians were as strong as the West Indies and matched them right through (In fact, in the World Series Supertests - the West Indians and the Australians shared the honours evenly).

So yes the best cricket team was once black but there have been very good white teams in Cricket who could have matched those black teams and in fact beaten them too.

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 11, 2006, 10:30 PM | #

What’s interesting, is that despite the obvious fact that Africans tend to be bigger in stature than whites, how come we never see any Africans winning the weightlifting at the Olympics? Even Thais have gotten into the finals, so how come Africans don’t make it?

Powerlifting is essentially a contest of upper body strength. Europeans generally have much greater and better upper body strength than blacks.

One good test of overall strength is the “Strongman” contest. They are invariably dominated by Slavs/Nordics. Blacks don’t even figure in these contests (as far as I know).

Posted by Desmond Jones on February 11, 2006, 11:13 PM | #

There is Mark Henry of course…

La Griffe du Lion’s notion…

One of the under-celebrated sagas of human biodiversity in the last quarter of the twentieth century is the emergence of the black athlete. His primacy is so conspicuous in some sports, that at the highest levels of competition other racial groups are all but invisible.

In some cases, as LaGriffe points out, it is much than just a substitution/rotation thing.

Doing the arithmetic, we find the NBA would have to grow to approximately 860,000 and field almost 72,000 twelve-man teams to obtain a league half white and half black.

That statistics alone, at least for the game of basketball, clearly indicates the domination.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 11:58 PM | #

In some cases, as LaGriffe points out, it is much than just a substitution/rotation thing.

Doing the arithmetic, we find the NBA would have to grow to approximately 860,000 and field almost 72,000 twelve-man teams to obtain a league half white and half black.

That statistics alone, at least for the game of basketball, clearly indicates the domination.

I don’t see where the two assertions intersect.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 11, 2006, 11:59 PM | #

My point was that games using frequent substitution place deemphasize stamina, a white forte.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 12, 2006, 12:00 AM | #

-place

Posted by Desmond Jones on February 12, 2006, 01:39 AM | #

The point is that while frequent rotation games may or may not favour whites the impact is nominal at best. What are there 30 NBA teams with twelve players each? LG’s point is that for whites to reach numerical equality in th NBA there must be *72,000* teams of 12 each. It unfathomable! The AQ [athletic quotient] gap between between blacks and whites, at least in some sports, is humungous.

That said, I would still suggest that the 1985-86 Boston Celtics are the greatest NBA team ever. And that team, Walton, Bird, McHale, Ainge and Dennis Johnson (who is almost white) were mostly white.

Greatest white team versus greatest black team:

Walton, Bird, McHale (or maybe John Havlicek or Rick Berry), Jerry West and Pistol Pete Marivich;

Against:

The Dipper (Wilt Chamberlain arguably the greatest center [55 rebounds in one game] of all time) or Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Magic at foward, Michael [removed] and Oscar Robertson at guards;

Now that’s a tough call especially when the black team has so much talent, Earl Monroe, Dr. J, etc etc etc coming off the bench.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 12, 2006, 01:48 AM | #

Well, chalk as much of it up to behavioral genetics or culture as you like, but teams from small Euro countries humiliated the all-black U.S. basketball team which was obviously drawn from a larger population, even if one counts only the black population.

As for the substitution issue, I still don’t think you’re getting my point, and I don’t think LG’s stats are germane.

Posted by Desmond Jones on February 12, 2006, 02:25 AM | #

No one said that a good white b-ball team can’t beat a good black b-ball team. That’s not LG’s point. It’s the dominance of the sport by blacks, that in his words make other races almost invisible, that is the issue.

Are LG’s stats germane when he discusses black IQ or crime rate?

Posted by calvin on February 12, 2006, 03:06 AM | #

A trained horse can run faster that a man. Who invented the sports that Blacks compete in? Who invented the training regimens that enable atheletes to excell? I am no more impressed that a White trained Black man using White invented equipment to participate in a White invented competition can outperform Whites than I am that a shark can swim faster than a surfer. The arrogant bragadoccio and general low behaviour of Black atheletes shows that the very concept of sport is alien to them. I’d rather watch performing seals than a Black basketball team.

Posted by Matra on February 12, 2006, 05:12 PM | #

before it imploded the best cricket team in the world was black.

Phil:

Yes and no. Lloyd’s West Indians were among the best in history but I think it is arguable that they weren’t the very best that ever played.

That quote along with the one about Formula One’s future being black, stood out to me.

I agree with all you say about South Africa and the West Indies. Also it has been well over 20 years since the great West Indies side: Shouldn’t they have produced another great team by now?  Waugh’s Australian team of the last decade is the best team of my lifetime. The old Windies had excellent batting and their somewhat thuggish fast bowlers won a lot of matches for them but Waugh’s Australians also had those qualities along with extraordinary fielding and the best spin bowler of all time.  I suspect the Aussies were also better away from home than that Windies.

South Africa is an overwhelmingly black country yet the cricket team has always been dominated by whites. The government has had to force quotas on all classes of South African cricket including the national team in order to get even minimal non-white (mostly mixed race) representation. 

It is also interesting that India despite a huge population advantage has never had a dominant period in the sport. For most of my lifetime they’ve been average at best and downright awful when away from the subcontinent.

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 12, 2006, 07:45 PM | #

Matra,

There are a few fascinating questions that come to mind from your post.

I don’t know if I would say with certainty that Waugh’s team was better than Lloyd’s. One could argue that Waugh’s team was more versatile because it had a well balanced bowling attack with spinners and great fast bowlers. But on the other hand, the West Indies didn’t lose a single rubber between 1979-80 (when they lost a series 1-0 in New Zealand, amazingly) and 1994-95 (when Mark Taylor’s team inflicted the first defeat on the West Indies in home soil in more than two decades).

By compairson, Waugh’s team although playing brilliantly everywhere, did lose a series in India in 2001 by a 2-1 margin (the West Indies never lost in India or Pakistan until very recently). But one could throw counter arguments to that by saying that India are more competitive now than they were in the 1980s when they had no spinners to really trouble the West Indians.

I don’t know how well Waugh’s team might have handled the West Indies pace quartet in its pomp. Contemporary batsmen are simply not subject to the barrage of short pitched bowling that was commonplace until the early 1990s when the ICC restricted bouncers to one per batsman per over.

Having said that, Australia even when they were clearly weakening with the Ian Chappell era coming to an end, matched the West Indies blow for blow. Jeff Thomson was rated by Clive Lloyd himself as the most fearsome fast bowler he ever faced. And Lillee was probably one of the best three fast bowlers ever to grace the game (if not the best).

So one could argue a lot about these things. But I guess the point that emerges from this is that cricket was never a totally black dominated game (although it did have a black dominated period in the 1980s) unlike Basketball or American Football.

India or Pakistan have never been serious contenders for the title of best team in the game although Pakistan drew four series with the West Indies in their pomp (at a time when most were getting beaten badly).

I suspect India or Pakistan won’t ever be the best team. Pakistan because of a lack of professionalism and India because of their inability to produce genuine fast bowlers.

South Africa’s return has been tragic. Without the Hansie Cronje match-fixing debacle (the darkest episode in the game’s history in my opinion) and the racial politics of the SA Government, a SA team slected on merit would be more than a match for anyone in the world today (although it won’t ever meet the SA Government’s racial quotas because it may be nearly all white).

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 12, 2006, 07:55 PM | #

Matra,

Two other things to add to what I said about the South Africans of 1970s vintage. Barry Richards was probably the greatest batsman of his generation - but he only played four tests.

And Graeme Pollock was rated by Sir Donald Bradman as the finest left-handed bastman he had ever seen. Pollock was clobbering West Indian quicks in the 1980s rebel tours even though he was almost 40 years old! In his prime, Pollock and Richards would have been more than a match for the WI quartet.

Also, South Africa had two all rounders in Clive Rice and Mike Procter who were as good as any that played in that era (and superior to the four all rounders of the 1980s - Hadlee, Botham, Kapil and Imran).

So combined with their batting ability, their pace attack and their all rounders (and phenomenal fielding ability), South Africa would have matched the West Indies. In fact, in the Packer World Series (which was the only time the West Indians played against the South Africans in a serious contest), you had blokes like Garth le Roux, Clive Rice and Mike Procter making the West Indian batsmen dance around with lethal bouncers (funnily enough, when the Packer “circus” ended, the West Indies did the same to all opposition but most of the fast bowling talent in the opposition was recedeing fast, so they had much less to worry about).

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 12, 2006, 10:10 PM | #

Actually Desmond, you had a point about substitution (I realized that a few minutes after posting my previous comment but it was late if I recall correctly); you didn’t need to switch to an irrelevant argument.

Still, my wider point stands: white fortes (strength, stamina, hand-eye coordination) don’t make for the spectacle that black fortes (power, speed, bone density) do.

Ultrarunning isn’t much of a spectator sport, but in terms of what is really represented by athletics it’s as praiseworthy as basketball.

Posted by Matra on February 13, 2006, 12:30 AM | #

Phil, you know your cricket!

I became a cricket fan during that West Indies tour of New Zealand that you mentioned. My view of the Windies is, uh, coloured by the very poor sportsmanship of the Windies during that series. Croft’s elbowing of an umpire and the initial refusal of the Windies to return to play after lunch or tea during the second (?) Test stick in my memory. I also felt that the bowling of the Windies ("headhunters" as they were known in NZ) was not in the spirit of the game. But I shouldn’t single out blacks as the Aussies have been just as disgraceful from time to time. Anyway… it is interesting to me that the Windies for all their great bowlers have never (to my knowledge) produced a great black spin bowler.

It has been said that the decline in West Indies cricket is connected to the Americanisation of the area. Apparently basketball is now more popular with younger people than cricket. Blacks from the Caribbean living in Toronto certainly seem keen on basketball.

Speaking of basketball - a sport I find incredibly boring - am I wrong to think that most of the top class white players are European? If I’m right why is that?

Posted by Lurker on February 13, 2006, 02:35 AM | #

Matra - Im sure Steve Sailer has said something about that. Europeans play as teams. Black players want to be the big man on court, not especially willing to assist other players. I think thats the gist of it.

Posted by Al Ross on February 13, 2006, 02:39 AM | #

Matra

The European players arent psychologically intimidated by Blacks or by the US media’s veneration of their skills.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 13, 2006, 02:42 AM | #

Matra - Im sure Steve Sailer has said something about that. Europeans play as teams. Black players want to be the big man on court, not especially willing to assist other players. I think thats the gist of it.

A black ex-NBA sportswriter has said the same in a remarkably frank (though culturally determinist) article.  I forget where, but it was mainstream.

That still doesn’t explain why so many white NBA standouts are Euros (if that’s the case - I don’t watch basketball as I too find it incredibly boring).

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on February 13, 2006, 02:48 AM | #

The European players arent psychologically intimidated by Blacks or by the US media’s veneration of their skills.

That could be it.  Also, it could be something similar to what you get in American football.  Whites are systematically discriminated against and so don’t even get a chance (see castefootball), whereas in Euro basketball leagues they can go pro, shine in the big time, and catch the attention of American owners.

Posted by Waugh on February 13, 2006, 04:56 AM | #

On the topic of cricket, I believe the reason why Australia is number one (and will continue to be number one for many years to come) is because of the abundance of talent within Australia. Through training programs like the AIS and the competitiveness of our state teams, we have so many players of quality. Don’t forget a few years ago the Australia A side beat Australia. Even if the Australian team all die in a plane crash, they could be quickly replaced and their standings would not alter. Sure other countries have outstanding players but they only have one or two of them in the team. If they don’t play their best, then the whole team is in trouble. Australia’s team are full of outstanding players so there is some kind of backup. Other countries also have training programs but not at the level Australia has (and money being spent).

Posted by Lurker on February 13, 2006, 10:42 AM | #

At any given moment the top English teams are full of foreign players. That limits the slots for English players and isnt going to be helpful when recruiting for the English team. In fact we insist on calling them the England team rather than the English. Same thing happens in football.

Posted by martin on February 13, 2006, 09:43 PM | #

“A guy lifting heavy weights isn’t as interesting to watch as a guy playing basketball, but that doesn’t make blacks athletically supreme either.”

Basketball is dreadfully boring. The “World’s strongest man” contests are at least a bit of a laugh.

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 14, 2006, 10:31 PM | #

On the topic of cricket, I believe the reason why Australia is number one (and will continue to be number one for many years to come) is because of the abundance of talent within Australia. Through training programs like the AIS and the competitiveness of our state teams, we have so many players of quality. Don’t forget a few years ago the Australia A side beat Australia. Even if the Australian team all die in a plane crash, they could be quickly replaced and their standings would not alter. Sure other countries have outstanding players but they only have one or two of them in the team. If they don’t play their best, then the whole team is in trouble. Australia’s team are full of outstanding players so there is some kind of backup. Other countries also have training programs but not at the level Australia has (and money being spent).

I disagree.

I think you could probably replace the entire Aussie batting line-up without too much trouble with talented players like Mark Cosgrove and Phil Jacques waiting in the wings. And Aussie fielding will always be awesome.

However, how do you find a replacement for Glenn McGrath? Or Shane Warne? Everytime McGrath has missed test matches, Australia’s bowling looks distinctly unthreatening. And if you take Warne out too, then there’s not much to write home about.

I was very impressed by Lee early on but he seems to have lost his way. He is still a brilliant one day cricket bowler but he’s struggled as a test match bowler.

Are there any promising quicks in domestic cricket?

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 14, 2006, 10:32 PM | #

Basketball is dreadfully boring. The “World’s strongest man” contests are at least a bit of a laugh.

As Sir Geoffrey Boycott says, “Basketball is for girls”.

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 14, 2006, 10:35 PM | #

At any given moment the top English teams are full of foreign players. That limits the slots for English players and isnt going to be helpful when recruiting for the English team. In fact we insist on calling them the England team rather than the English. Same thing happens in football.

In the current team which players are of foreign origin?

Kevin Pietersen is South African. Strauss is also probably South African. However, I can’t think of anyone else. This is the most “English” team we have had in years (Jones is Welsh but that doesn’t count).

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 14, 2006, 10:44 PM | #

Putting English in quotes requires some explanation.

Reading about the history of Cricket I never imagined anyone could be more English than Douglas Jardine. He wore his Harlequin cap on the field, was the epitome of the stiff upper lip and had a rather atypical English upper class disdain about him (yet earned the deep seated of working class lads like Larwood who would keep bowling even with a fractured foot if he were asked).

Yet I recently found out Jardine was a Scot!

Posted by neal on February 15, 2006, 01:07 PM | #

Another fine example of media influence. I never put any thought to the winter olympics, and race. All my life I have known that outdoor winter sports are heavily weighted by caucasians. Is that a white mans problem, no, an olympic commitee action item - no. A jaded minority reporters problem- apparently! So how do you break the stereotypical barrier, teach your kids to ski, oh wait that would interupt their basketball schedule, what was I thinking… maybe some diversity of sport instead of race. I would think a non-white that excels in a winter sport would be the next Tiger Woods. And how did he get to where he is… a family that let him choose his sport of choice, instaed of following the herd and seeking the NBA/NFL draft with blinders on.
If ABC/ESPN fired Rush Limbaugh over a similar statement, then CBS has no other option but to follow suit, wait again I speak before thinking only whites can be singled out for “racist statements” any other ethinic group is just making a statement.
CBS you have apink slip to issue TODAY!!!

Posted by Matra on February 16, 2006, 11:08 PM | #

I see the Drudge Report and Fox News have now picked up this story nearly a week after we were all over it. At Google the threads I started here and at Caste Football are both near the top if you type in Gumbel’s name and Olympics.

Phil:

As Sir Geoffrey Boycott says, “Basketball is for girls”.

Someone like Boycott (a white man) would be way too politically incorrect for American TV. I remember him constantly referring to some Pakistani player of small stature as “a little monkey”. Such comments and his conviction in France for hitting some silly woman would make it difficult for any US media corporation to hire him. (Not that they are likely to be hiring any cricket commentators any time soon!)

Posted by Lurker on February 17, 2006, 12:00 AM | #

When I said top English teams, I meant county teams in England, not the actual national team itself, hence the comparison with football (didnt Chelsea field an entirely foreign team a year or so back, not just non-English but non-British?).

Sorry for the confusion, not really a sporting bod you see.

Posted by Matra on February 17, 2006, 04:42 AM | #

Lurker:

When I said top English teams, I meant county teams in England, not the actual national team itself

I meant to suggest that to Phil but somehow forgot. Yes, I always found it strange that the top player in most county teams was usually a foreigner. Often the foreigner was brought in mainly to appeal to ethnic communities. Shoaib Ahktar, though certainly a great bowler, going to Nottingham 5 or 6 years ago was a probably case in point. Channel 4 certainly made a big deal out of the Pakistani community’s sudden interest in the league.

Fred:

Matra, you and MR.com deserve hearty congratulations for scooping the MSM, Drudge, and talk radio on this story.  I heard Rush Limbaugh discuss it today on my car radio, playing the obnoxious Gumbel crack about the supposedly all-white GOP, and said to myself, “Rush is just getting to this now?  MR.com did it a week ago!”

Thanks. I’m glad to hear that Rush Limbaugh also mentioned it. Of all people he should know about the racial double standard in the media. BTW how did Donovan McNabb do this past NFL season? Ha! Not very well. Even if he had not been injured I doubt he would have accomplished much. As to the other great black hope Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons, he’s certainly exciting at times but when he was throwing the ball I sometimes thought I was watching a CFL game!

Hans Tokke:

For Canadians the Olympic hockey tournament was a joke until we could ice our NHL best and now we proudly cheer on our national sport

Unfortunately a lot of Europeans used to think that Olympic hockey and the so-called World Championship held every April in Europe involved the top players. I know this because back around 1978 living in N Ireland I saw a bit of a World Championship match on the BBC in which Canada got soundly beaten. Due to that I just assumed Canada wasn’t much good at hockey. After moving to Canada it was quite a surprise to find out that Canada didn’t send its best team to such tournaments.

Posted by ben tillman on February 17, 2006, 05:26 AM | #

Welcome, Neal and Hans; I haven’t seen y’all around here before.

The European players arent psychologically intimidated by Blacks or by the US media’s veneration of their skills.

Could we be seeing something similar to the phenomenon observed in single-sex schools?  Segregated by sex, girls are more likely to try their hands at math and science, while boys are more likely to take an interest in art and literature.

Posted by bob beckford on February 17, 2006, 05:29 AM | #

You all have the IQ of a cockroach.  Grow up!

Posted by ben tillman on February 17, 2006, 06:08 AM | #

You all have the IQ of a cockroach.

Let’s see, Bob—we have the “IQ of a cockroach”, yet you can’t refute anything we’ve said.  You must be REALLY intelligent!

Posted by Desmond Jones on February 17, 2006, 06:09 AM | #

“Basketball is for girls”. No, no, no, netball is for girls. Geez and this guy calls himself an Englishman!

Sir Garfield Sobers is the best all around cricketer of all time.

It didn’t seem to be a joke when Canada won consecutive hockey golds from 1920-1952, (interupted only by Great Britain in 1936; how many Canucks were on that team?) Nagano wasn’t too funny either when Canada’s ‘best’ didn’t even qualify for a medal.

No joke in 1980 either when a bunch Yankee college kids had the intestinal fortitude (and some good luck) to defeat arguably the best hockey team ever assembled. A team that handily hammered Canada’s ‘best’ the following year, 1981.

It was not Olympic hockey that was the joke, it was the Canadian hockey elite who chose to stick their collective heads up their ass and not learn the lessons the were unfoldly before them.

Posted by Phil on February 17, 2006, 08:04 AM | #

Sir Garfield Sobers is the best all around cricketer of all time.

I never disputed that.

Posted by Brad on February 17, 2006, 02:32 PM | #

Bryant Gumbel had an opportunity to talk about how class divisions in the US prevents Blacks from participating in sports that cost a lot of money to participate in (you priced ski poles lately?) which is more his style.  Instead, he went for the racial shock card.  Unfortunately, this is the way the media works.  Calm, cool and collected does not get you air time.  Wild, illogical rants do.

Posted by Rick Hill on February 17, 2006, 02:40 PM | #

So what are the stats?  How many people tried out for the WINTER Olympics?  How many of them are black?

Seems to me that you don’t see too many black people participating in cold weather sports.  I think Gumbel is just taking the CEO approach - skew the truth to whatever makes you feel good.

Posted by Matra on February 17, 2006, 08:01 PM | #

Hans:

But the tourney was also a joke with my aforementioned comments on the Soviets. Only with the breakdown of the Soviet Union has the tournament taken on its epic proportions allowing the Canadians, Czechs, Swedes, Slovaks, and those usually tough Americans (well, maybe not this year) to show their stuff.

Agreed. In the 80s the Canada Cup was (rightly) taken more seriously by Canadians than the Olympics with amateurs having to play the top Soviet and Czechoslovak players. It was not the fault of the Canadian hockey elite that the country didn’t win gold medals at a time when NHLers were not allowed to play. Canada lost heavily in the final game of the 1981 Canada Cup but then won the tournament in 1984, 1987, and 1991. In 1996 they lost in the best of three World Cup (the replacement for the Canada Cup) finals to the US (I enjoyed that!). After the shootout loss to the Czech Republic in Nagano (the bronze medal match didn’t matter) they won gold in Salt Lake City and the 2004 World Cup (though some European countries didn’t take the tournament as seriously as in the past). There is little doubt that Canada has been the dominant hockey power of the past quarter century.

Posted by Desmond Jones on February 17, 2006, 09:29 PM | #

It was not the fault of the Canadian hockey elite that the country didn’t win gold medals at a time when NHLers were not allowed to play.

Of course it was. A national Canadian amateur hockey programme, like the one that won US amateurs gold in Squaw Valley in 1960, silver in Sapporo in ‘72 and gold again in Lake Placid in 1980, was a direct threat to NHL supremacy and thus revenues.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, arguably the biggest blow to the development of the game of hockey in its history, to the 2005 World Championship, Canada has won one Canada Cup, one gold medal, one World Cup and four World Championships. There has been played one Canada Cup, two World Cups, two Olympic games (where NHL pros played, four altogether) and 15 World Championships.

Of a total of 20 championships, since the Soviet breakup, Canada has won seven. Not exactly domination.

(the bronze medal match didn’t matter) LOL. It’s the Aesop’s fable about the fox who couldn’t get the grapes and then decided after many futile attempts, they were sour. LOL

Posted by Matra on February 17, 2006, 10:05 PM | #

A national Canadian amateur hockey programme, like the one that won US amateurs gold in Squaw Valley in 1960, silver in Sapporo in ‘72 and gold again in Lake Placid in 1980

Such a team might have won the occasional big game against the Soviets but the latter with their best players still would have dominated.

Of a total of 20 championships, since the Soviet breakup, Canada has won seven. Not exactly domination.

That’s because you are counting the World Championships. I didn’t count them for good reason.  Having a hockey world championship with just those whose teams did not make the playoffs is like having a world championship of soccer with half the players in Serie A, La Liga, and the English Premiership not allowed to play. As I’ve already pointed out Canada has been dominant in tournaments involving the top players in the past quarter century.

the bronze medal match didn’t matter) LOL. It’s the Aesop’s fable about the fox who couldn’t get the grapes and then decided after many futile attempts, they were sour. LOL

You must know being a Canadian that your fellow countryman expect a gold medal in hockey and nothing less. The winner take all mentality is ingrained in North American sports with even ties in unimportant regular season games being unacceptable. For decades I’ve heard Canadian sports commentators saying third place matches are a European thing and for the most part meaningless. The players seem to feel the same way.

Posted by Matra on February 17, 2006, 10:09 PM | #

More on Bryant Gumbel.

While Gumbel’s one-on-one with Burk - the National Council of Women’s Organizations chairwoman leading the fight to get a woman admitted to Augusta National Golf Club - made for riveting TV, an important fact was not revealed.

Gumbel, a golf fanatic, is a longtime member of the all-male Burning Tree Country Club in Bethesda, Md.

For the sake of full disclosure, not to mention Gumbel’s credibility, his membership in the club should have been mentioned

Posted by Matra on February 18, 2006, 04:58 PM | #

John Gibson yesterday on Fox News:

I was thinking about what Bryant Gumbel said. Believe it or not, I don’t mean the part about the Winter Olympics being so white it looks like a GOP convention. That was only Bryant granting himself the right to be racist just to throw an elbow at Republicans. Yeah, we know Bryant. You’re a lib. We get it. Fine.

But it was his remark about the Winter Olympics not being real sports, that any sport that had a crying room wasn’t a real sport, which got me thinking.

Why have the Winter Olympics been so dull?

I realized it’s because the Olympics have just become the U.N. with running shoes, or in this case skis. It’s all the people who don’t like Americans and certainly don’t want to hear anybody chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A.”

It’s boring because it’s just a bunch of Euros and some others competing for the gold.

I know you think that’s what the Olympics should be — and maybe — but it’s boring.

Roone Arledge, the late, great boss at ABC, knew what the Olympics were about. It was us against them.

It was the red, white and blue against the hated evil empire, the Ruskies and the Iron Curtain countries. It was plucky and brave little Nadia Comaneci’s of breakaway satellite republics versus steroid-pumped East German shot putters. It was the nobody American hockey team against the feared Red Army team on the ice at Lake Placid.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185294,00.html

In case you are not aware “Euros” is neocon for people from Europe (ie., Europeans) not the €uro currency. I have no idea why they have stopped saying ‘Europeans”.

Hans:

I would love to see some big time black athletes take up the sport of hockey…

Too bad this will never happen since African American hip-hop culture promotes only football and basketball as their “true” sports.

Black Americans don’t like anything that’s white. It’s the same with music: Whites will listen to black music but few blacks will give any white music the time of day as they consider it inferior. They also consider white athletes to be inferior. Even here in Canada not that many blacks play hockey. At one school I’m aware of they got rid of the ice in the arena and turned it into an all year basketball area. This was done to please the growing black student body and supposedly to keep them out of trouble.

Americans, in general, are inward looking when it comes to sports. Other nationalities aren’t much better: Canadians for all their self-professed internationalism rarely watch an international hockey game that Canada is not involved in; Italians are also famous for not caring about sports if no Italian is involved.

Posted by Matra on February 20, 2006, 12:31 AM | #

White Snow, Brown Rage: The racial case against the Winter Olympics by a Bangladeshi who probably thinks he (she? Who can tell with such a name?) is a real American. Check this out:

Growing up, I forsook the lily-white Winter Olympics for the multi-culti Summer Games. I still vividly recall the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, when my middle sister and I cheered on every wiry, diminutive American athlete of a darker hue. When you squint, a fearsome Latino bantamweight looks not unlike one of the burnt ochre Salams.

These are the immigrants libertarians and other capitalist fanatics want to see more of. Here’s the Bangladeshi, no doubt speaking for millions of brown immigrants, on the Jamaican bobsled team and anti-white solidarity:

I was hoping to see this Third World band of brothers humble their colonialist oppressors with furious bobsled action. Instead, I was told that merely finishing the race was a “triumph of the human spirit” for these stumbling boobs. Meanwhile, pasty and perfumed Hanz and Franz were high-fiving each other on the medal stand. Call it tribalism of the basest sort, but I will never apologize. I want some brown sugar, on ice.

I eagerly await the day when mainstream American media will give a voice to whites who like slagging off girly black sports like basketball.

Posted by Desmond Jones on February 20, 2006, 06:56 AM | #

If basketball is a girly black sport then what does that say about the great white athletes who have played that game? Walton, Bird, West, Marivich, Berry and more recently Canuck Steve Nash are revered as great names in the sport.

HOUSTON - Everywhere you look, there’s an icon. Kobe Bryant. Kevin Garnett. Shaquille O’Neal. In a way, being at the NBA All-Star Game is not unlike being trapped in one hell of a shoe commercial. Or all the shoe commercials, rolled into one.

And softly stepping among the giants is some Canadian named Steve Nash. And even with all the stars in the room—the brightest lights of basketball—almost anyone you ask will tell you that Nash is the MVP. Again.

“If he won the MVP last year, he’s doing better this year,” says Charles Barkley, an icon himself. “Steve Nash is playing fantastic. The level of basketball overall in the league is brutal. So if you’ve got a guy who’s going to make everyone around him better ... ”

If you feel the game today is shit compared to what it once was, that’s a supportable position. However to defame roundball as simply a ‘girly black sport’ means you must be viewing it from the inside of a paper bag.

Sailer’s article has some merit, however, to write off great white athletic performances, like, now Dr. Eric Heiden’s, unmatched winning of five individual golds, at the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, unmatched by black, white, brown or yellow, as nerdicism is a really a reach. Sure speed skating highly emphasizes technique, however, Heiden had 27” thighs and blacksmith’s bellows for lungs. This guy was an amazing athlete and Sailer’s piece does him a disservice.

Posted by casey james on February 23, 2006, 08:15 PM | #

the only thing blacks are genetically desposed to (in this country) is being marginalized and empoverished. It is no supprise that sports that receive ample funding in even the poorest highschools (basketball and football, namely) have found many of their greatest stars coming from black neighborhoods. Public funding in urban areas have created after school programs and free basketball courts.

but you do not find support or facilities for more expensive sports in these neighborhoods.  most of which are the events represented in the winter olympics. how many low income highschool students find their way to the school ski trip?

the olympic committee is not racist the country is. we should be asking not “why are there few minority winter olympians?” and be asking “why are minorities so fucking poor?” (lets talk about a rooted history of nonexistant minority access to capital)

Posted by Matra on February 23, 2006, 11:05 PM | #

Desmond Jones:

However to defame roundball as simply a ‘girly black sport’ means you must be viewing it from the inside of a paper bag.

Like many who spent a part of their childhood outside North America I tend to see basketball as a glorified version of netball, a sport played exclusively by girls in the other two countries I was raised in. I just find it interesting the way black Americans go on about how tough they are yet the sport they seem most attracted to is one almost devoid of physical contact.

I recall an episode of The Jeffersons in which George Jefferson tells his English neighbour that ghetto blacks prefer basketball to a “sissy sport like soccer”.  It may be a TV show but I think that is an accurate depiction of black American views. Northern Irish friends who went to America on “cross community” programmes told me they heard similar things from both black and white Americans. (Too many white North Americans adopt black attitudes).

As long as blacks insist on dismissing the athleticism in sports dominated by whites I don’t see why we should shy away from making fun of some of the sports they dominate. Their swagger and arrogance on the court are enough to put anyone off basketball.

Posted by Al Ross on February 24, 2006, 01:37 AM | #

Anyone who has had the misfortune to drive through a garbage-strewn Black neighbourhood will immediately understand why it would have been impossible for anyone from that racial group to devise the game of basketball. This relates to the fact that the game’s originator, James Naismith, spent many hours doodling on paper in an attempt to create an indoor winter game for the YMCA and stumbled upon his idea as, after each drawing attempt, he aimed the scrunched-up paper at the trashcan.

Posted by Lurker on February 24, 2006, 03:17 AM | #

Soccer is a girls/kids game in N.America but not elsewhere.

Netball/basketball is a “proper” game in N.America but elsewhere its a girls game. (Someone would love baseball to be a real force here to judge by the amount of times its featured in UK childrens advertising, hasnt worked yet though)

Baseball is a “proper” game in N.America, but in Britain only little kids play rounders/softball aka baseball.

Of course there are exceptions to all these but you get the general thrust.

Dunno what it all means though..

Posted by Lurker on February 24, 2006, 03:20 AM | #

Sorry!

This bit: (Someone would love baseball to be a real force here to judge by the amount of times its featured in UK childrens advertising, hasnt worked yet though) should have been refering to basketball.

Posted by Desmond Jones on February 24, 2006, 05:21 AM | #

...they seem most attracted to is one almost devoid of physical contact.

A tough sport does not necessarily mean a violent sport. It can also mean severely testing of stamina or resolution. B-ball fits that parameter. Dr. William Nicholas, of Lenox Hill Hospital, ranks sport according to physical and mental demand. Basketball attains a score of 51, only slighty behind hockey [so much for Canadian dominance LOL) at 54 and football at 56. The attraction of b-ball is that it’s athletically hugely demanding and of course, in the US at least, it pays well.

White North Americans adopt the attitude towards soccer, not because they emulate blacks, but because they equate toughness with physical violence. Again, to assert that soccer, like b-ball, is not a physical and even violent game, only means you are ignorant of the sport. Certainly blacks outside the US would not see the great Pele as a sissy.

I don’t see why we should shy away from making fun of some of the sports they dominate.

Why, because it’s moronic. It’s shows disdain for the great white athleticism in black dominated sport. It’s as stupid as George Jefferson’s or Isiah Thomas’/Dennis Rodman’s comment regarding Larry Bird’s ablitity:

After the Celtics knocked the Detroit Pistons out of the 1987 playoffs, Dennis Rodman groused that Bird was “very overrated” and racked up MVPs because all the awards went to the best available paleface. Jack Sikma and Kurt Rambis didn’t offer much competition.

“I think Larry is a very, very good basketball player. He’s an exceptional talent,” added Detroit’s Isiah Thomas. “But I have to agree with Rodman. If he were black, he’d be just another good guy.”

It’s true that if Larry Bird were black, he would be just another player—albeit another really, really great one.

Anyone who has had the misfortune to drive through a garbage-strewn Black neighbourhood will immediately understand why it would have been impossible for anyone from that racial group to devise the game of basketball.

Devising the game and playing the game are two different things and simply serves to re-affirm Darwin’s notion of Master Races. Different groups evolved different qualities.

Posted by Matra on February 24, 2006, 06:09 AM | #

I played basketball at a Canadian school within a year of playing cricket and rugby, both union & league, at a New Zealand school. I also played hockey and lacrosse at the same Canadian school and as bad as I was at lacrosse (I had trouble catching the ball) I preferred both to basketball which I considered to be a girly game. Sorry, but that’s how I felt at the time and still feel today. The greatest living Yorkshireman Geoffrey Boycott is not alone in considering basketball a sport for girls. Given the sport’s popularity in southern and eastern Europe perhaps it is an Anglo-Saxon view.

Basketball reminded me of NZ when once a year the boys who played rugby and cricket were forced to play netball with the girls for an afternoon as part of some government show. Bigwigs walked among us as we humiliated ourselves playing netball when we really wanted to be on the pitch playing real sports like rugby and cricket.

Posted by Desmond Jones on February 24, 2006, 07:23 AM | #

We’re not talking preference. You may prefer lacrosse to basketball for a number of reasons. (However, you may change your mind if you learned that one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time is a black man). The game you played may be a girly game, considering the fact that you competed against girls. However, that game is not the game played at an elite level.

It may be an English view of an American game, [which is not surprising considering the somewhat pervasive disdain by so many English of all things American] however, considering that the greatest white players in the game, Walton, West, Bird, McHale, Berry etc. etc. are Anglo-Saxons, it does not ring true.

Posted by Pele on February 24, 2006, 01:21 PM | #

Football (soccer to others) is the world game. There are more members in FIFA than in the United Nations! Americans (black and white) degrade it because it isn’t a sport where they can easily be number one. Thats why they had to create their own football. So they can call themselves ‘world champions’.

There are plenty of quality black players in football as well as white players. Even some asian players from Korea, Japan and China play in the European leagues. Teams wouldn’t accept them if they were crap.

A truly world game!

Posted by Desmond Jones on March 08, 2006, 04:46 PM | #

Matra,

The SI piece vis-a-vis Bonds, excerpted from Game of Shadows, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, is interesting; especially Bonds vile hatred of whitey.

“He had grown up in an affluent white suburb of San Francisco, and his best boyhood friend, his first wife and his present girlfriend all were white.”

It also begets the question, if his father Bobby Bonds, and his godfather, the great Willie Mays, had experienced such virulent racism in their playing days and their experience with the white man was so demeaning; Why the hell were they living in a white neighbourhood?

The above question got this reply:

They could be called black limousine liberals . I will tell you what you need to know , but since I am an exception to the rule , this advice does not apply to me.

It is oh so fashionable to slam whitey and play the wannabe black panther bit as circumstances dictate. That way you get to be rich and hang with whitey [ and bang his women ] and act cool at the same time. The same driving principle benhind [sic] hip hop ‘ culture ‘ .

LOL

Posted by justcommenting on March 23, 2006, 12:23 AM | #

It’s interesting how all of you are discussing how Bryant Gumbel is racist. Every comment here seems to be the same. Stereotypes everywhere. Everything he does has to be to prove something. He married a white woman so that he could say he wasn’t racist? It could never be that he just likes her, is in love with her. This is what’s wrong with America. Yea, the comment he made was wrong, but your all just feeding it. Someone had mentioned how blacks actually have smaller brains and how it was scientifically proven, if your referring to just IQ tests, it’s also shown that those are culturally biased to the majority, in this case whites. Too, I’m not too sure about the size of the brains of anyone who’s posted on here. I’ve got a question for you, why do whites have to be better than blacks? Does anybody know why they supposedly are? Answer that intelligently and maybe you can be proven right.

Posted by Guessedworker on March 23, 2006, 12:49 AM | #

Better in which sense?  Do you mean intellectually?  Well, you are probably aware that a century of IQ tests have produced a very robust inter-racial pattern of mean intelligence ... which, too, has been shown to have a substantial heritable component.  But if you don’t like IQ tests, cranial capacity is an equally useful guide and demonstrates the same pattern of difference.

Peoples do not evolve free and clean of their geographic locales.  They adapt.  Natural selection over a period of tens of thousands of years assures that their fitness is highly region-specific.  That means peoples are not the same.  There are heritable differences which cannot be wished away.

Posted by justcommenting on March 23, 2006, 02:57 AM | #

So that’s how whites are better? Doesn’t seem a good enough reason to me. Survival of the fittest doesn’t work. White’s may be the fittest because they’re in power and can opress everyone else.  I’m asking curiously what makes one race better then another, and why does it have to be whites? Everyone is different, and like you said those differences can’t be wished away. So, why are we always trying to say that white differences are better than any other race? I don’t know if anyone can answer that. Intelligence is defined by the majority, so that can’t be why one race is better. You can’t say that all whites are smarter than blacks, because the white people define that. I just read more of the comments on this, and everyone is so one sided!! “Blacks don’t like anything white.” Do whites like anything black? According to other people, plenty of black men just dream about white women. Of course, from few of the comments I’ll make a stereotype of my own that most of the people commenting are from the still racist south. You can’t criticize a man for being racist when you yourself are racist, it’s called hypocracy.

Posted by Desmond Jones on March 23, 2006, 03:57 AM | #

For the answer you have to answer your own question, JC.

Why are whites in power? How did whites come upon the power of ascendancy and oppression?

You can’t say that all whites are smarter than blacks, because the white people define that.

You can say their is disproportionate number of whites whose IQ exceeds the black mean IQ. And if white people define it, why do many whites, like J.P. Rushton say that the Chinese have a higher mean IQ than whites? Or that Jews have a higher mean?

You can’t criticize a man for being racist when you yourself are racist, it’s called hypocracy.

No it’s called race realism and even some black men appreciate an honest discussion of realism.

(11) Marcus Garvey, Negro World (September, 1923)

I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together. I like honesty and fair play. You may call me a Klansman if you will, but, potentially, every white man is a Klansman, as far as the Negro in competition with whites socially, economically and politically is concerned, and there is no use lying about.

Posted by justcommenting on March 23, 2006, 07:47 PM | #

I understand there is a difference in IQ. But can you honestly say that one race is better than another just based off of that?

Posted by Ben Tillman on March 24, 2006, 01:01 AM | #

I understand there is a difference in IQ. But can you honestly say that one race is better than another just based off of that?

You’re the one who keeps talking about one race being “better” than another.  Races are different, not better or worse.  People love their children not because they are better than other children but because they are *their* children.

“Better” has nothing to do with it.  We are who we are, and we want to survive into the future.  We want to control our own destiny, and we resent people like Bryant Gumbel and his employers butting into our business.